Held hostage in a playpark by an ice cream man

Today is Bull Running in Gaucin, this happens in most Spanish towns and the one in Gaucin is always Easter Sunday. Sunday is also our favourite day to go to Atajate for Sunday Lunch. So, after walking the dogs we head off to drive round the back of Ronda to let Alex and Christine see the view from the road. The weather is good, clear and blue but a bit cold in the shade.

We drove past Ronda and round to the Gaucin road


We stopped at the first few viewpoints to take photographs of Ronda and the scenery. This picture is of Ronda from the south.

Lunch was the usual standard, excellent. George Michael was there as usual. I had Lamb (sorry Mum) but it was delicious as usual. The place was filling up as we left for Gaucin. We parked easily enough at the roadside, the advantage of having a 4x4 is that you have a better choice of parking places. We discovered that the Bull Running was not until 4 and it was now just after 3 so we went for a drink at the bar in the centre and waited. The town was a mess, broken plastic glasses everywhere - we discovered later that this is because there was also a running in the morning.

We walked through the main street trying to find a place of safety from where to watch the Bulls, eventually we found a kiddies playpark by the Church with gates, we guessed they would be closed at the right time. The Ice Cream seller closed and locked the gates, he refused to let us out, I have never been taken hostage by an ice cream man before.

We watched and photographed the running from behind the gates, I am glad they were locked as it could have been quite hairy! The Bull is let out with a rope tied to it, it was not playing ball so the croud pull it along to make it run a bit faster but it was actually quite boring, not like last year. Every so often the croud would scream and run towards us, we'd think that something was happening but it was just a false alarm. Alex did say that he thought that the people outside were cowards, considering that we were the ones locked in a Kiddies playground I reckon we were the cowards!

This man was obviously bored by the procession, or more likely totally drunk as it appeared that most of the town had consumed a couple of beers.

The Bull eventually appeared getting taunted by the crowds, see the locals hanging off the bars on the buildings. We had a good location if only we had not been taken prisoner!

I disagree with this sport and wont go back to see another, it's not as bad as Bull Fighting as the Bull lives to see another day but it is a bit barbaric and the crowd really taunt the poor animal, this one was quite young and not keen to play ball.

We went home to a lovely dinner cooked again by Susan.

Tomorrow we are gooing to walk the dogs on the beach then go to Ronda for the evening.